Alienation
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: America votes to outlaw heroes, and Superman makes his own choice: one that will take him from everything he stands for in his quest for compromise. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the regret? That's a surprise. [set, plot-wise, in TDKR-verse, but with elements from other canon thrown in]
1. Chapter 1

_Alienation_

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It's strange to see Batman sitting in the government building. It's a strange sight altogether, more superheroes in one place than he's ever seen outside of the Watchtower, except when they're fighting. Now, the costumed force fills up the marble lobby, sitting on chairs, on tables, a few perching on the banisters. There's a smattering of non-hero, non-powered people in the room also, but they stand out in the way they hold themselves, keeping congregated in groups, as though mindful of safety in numbers. They look nervous, Superman thinks darkly, wondering what Clark Kent could write about them. It's not their future that's being decided on.

In another way, the sight hurts. Like there are lines already being drawn between what's normal and what's not. The heroes in the room are mostly subdued. Everyone waiting to file in. They've been here for hours. It will probably be a few hours more.

He sits next to Batman when the seat next to him is vacated. Batman sits on the low no-backed couch like he's at a war council. He makes the potted plant wilt beside him. It's strange, and almost funny, but only because of how funny it isn't. He's been scowling for the last five hours, creating a personal space wide enough to reach the moon. It hasn't stopped people from sitting beside him, and as Superman paced through the lobby, he could hear snatches of each conversation. He lets them talk to fill the silence until their worry has been put out in the open and then talks them through their options. What to expect if worst comes to worst. Or just lets them sit and ramble on about the furniture, what their family did that day, giving them his full attention.

Superman can feel his tiredness. Not just in the tightness of his muscles, the adrenaline in his bloodstream, the almost impassable flatness of his voice with the hint of a catch underneath. It echoes from him, like a shockwave. Bruce needs to lie down. He needs people to stop sitting next to him. He needs to not be here.

They all need a lot of things.

Superman wants to jump into the air and leave the world behind till everything becomes a jumble of voices in the atmosphere and he can pretend not to listen, just flying, alone in the clouds. But he needs to be here, so instead of making circles around the earth, he paces through the room wearing an almost invisible dip in the marble.

When he sits next to Batman, Bruce relaxes unconsciously, like a chemical reaction to his presence. Superman drags the potted plant in front of them with his foot and turns around to give his friend the privacy he'd been too stubborn to ask for.

Batman has his eyes shut. "You didn't need to do that," he says wryly, leaning against the marble wall.

"You're almost collapsing," Superman answers. "How long has it been since you slept?"

"Slept at all or slept well?" Bruce counters.

Too long.

The silence lengthens between them. Superman listens to the other conversations in the room almost absently, but it doesn't help, only making him more wired. He wants to fight something. He wants to scream. Neither of those things will help. He listens to the rustle of clothing, the clink of keychains, the pounding of hearts, stares up and through the ceiling to the sky above. It's a perfect day. The sun is out.

"Tell me you'll abide by their decision," he says. The tension in Bruce's muscles returns. His heart-rate increases. Superman wishes he hadn't said anything. Bruce opens his eyes.

"Please, Clark," he says. "Not now."

"I need to know you'll stand by it. The other heroes will need examples, we're the biggest examples they could have. What they need." The founders of the Justice League.

Wonder Woman has already stated that if this decision goes through, she will be leaving the world of man, returning to Themyscira.

"I never asked to be an example."

Of course not. Batman, who never admitted he was anything other than a consultative role. Whose hero persona is based on fear and legend, too close to the villains he fights for Clark's comfort.

"I know."

"Just leave it." Bruce turns aside. Clark takes it as a good sign that he doesn't merely sit up and stalk away but that would mean leaving his seat. Emerging from behind the wall Superman created. It's a subtle form of blackmail neither of them acknowledge.

"I can't."

"And what do you think they'll do to you?" Batman asks. His tone mocking.

"I plan to abide by the decision," Clark says slowly. It will hurt, but he's had practice. "I can live as Clark Kent." He's already letting go.

Batman laughs, a twisted sound. Quiet, almost hysterical if it weren't so carefully controlled, so sharply pointed.

Clark flinches.

"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you you're in denial," Bruce says, doing just that. "They don't want Clark Kent."

Superman frowns. He knows what Batman's insinuating, but he has to believe this decision will be based on fairness. Whatever they offer to keep him as "Superman," he's not planning to take it. If they vote out heroes, if they vote against the fifth of the population with powers, they will get what they asked for. There will be no more Superman. There will be no more heroes. And if Clark has to learn to hear less, if he lies awake at night hearing screams and forcing himself not to act—well, he's done it before. He, more than anyone, knows the truth of the adage, _you can't save everyone_.

Batman can't do that. He's never known how to stand aside. He's never learned to not blame himself.

"There you are," Jason says, still a hint of his usual amusement, and the kid slips over Superman's barrier with unnatural precision to flop himself into the seat between them. He sighs, and Batman's arm tightens around him. "Pretty cool fort," he says, looking at Superman, but his eyes are suspicious. _You were pushing him again, weren't you?_ they say. Superman smiles a half-smile and stands up. "I should," keep walking around the room, watching the specks of marble sheer up under his boots, "go."

He steps away.

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	2. Chapter 2

The decision should be a surprise. It isn't. The unnatural quietness was broken at the very end, and now there are voices everywhere. Angry ones, desperate ones, some trying to keep order, some triumphant. The doors are opened, and Superman can already see the scrawled signs of protesters in the air. Reporters line the blockade. He looks through the group, ignoring the flashes of cameras and shouted questions, and there she is. Lois. In a pink dress. Holding a pencil so hard it will snap in a moment. The fibers are stressed, already pulling. She meets his eyes, and her face is bleak; it looks like a picture. White face, wide eyes. She's been crying.

He feels the professional mask start to slip off his face. He doesn't know what it will reveal. Anguish? Terror? Fury? Whatever it is, they don't need to see. He pulls his eyes away. Of course Lois is here. He wishes he could be standing beside her. Tunes out everything else, listens to her heartbeat, her breathing, tries to inhale her smell, but too many other things get in the way. He doesn't know if he can make it through this. When he steps up to the podium, holds the edge carefully in his hand so he won't snap it, and realizes they're shaking. He takes a deep breath and stills them. Looks out blankly over the crowd.

For a moment, he almost says something he'd regret. He takes another breath. Gives the speech he'd prepared for this eventuality. _The Justice League will abide by this decision_. Nothing to worry about. You won't be facing a war. I won't tear the world apart like that.

I could.

When he steps aside, one of the president's aides accosts him. "Excuse me, Superman, can we have a moment?"

He stares. There must be something in his expression besides the numbness that he feels, or maybe that's enough, because the man steps back and swallows, his heart beating fast, sweat glands moving into overdrive. He's scared. Good.

But he stands, still waiting for an answer, and finally Superman nods, following the line of dark-clad figures back into the building. Their steps echo on the floor. Nobody speaks. For some reason the walls are closer than they were before, the ceiling lower, and he stares through it all.

When he gets into the room, the skeleton of the president stands up. "Superman," it says. "I'm glad you could spare a moment."

He tries not to look through people when he's talking to them. Right now he doesn't care.

"I can't stay long," he says politely, watching the jaw move up and down.

We're worried about the reaction, the skeleton says. You saw what's happening already. We need to keep order.

"Of course. I already said I would stand by the decision."

"Yes. The Justice League. But how many people will abide by that? How many rogue agents are we going to have to worry about?"

"In America?" He tries to calculate. "Maybe seventy members." It's a conservative estimate.

The jaw comes up. A flicker, and the muscles are tightening around his mouth. The skin around his eyes pulled. "Seventy. And is there anything you can do about that?"

A dip, as though he stepped off the edge of a cliff onto thin air. The moment before he realizes he can fly. The moment when he realizes he can't. "I can make a list of the most likely candidates," he says. The back of his mouth is sour. He needs to leave, or he's going to destroy something. Who would trust Superman then? He could always say he was mind controlled.

The president gives him a sidelong glance. Superman wonders why. Then he realizes his mouth is pulled into a tight grin. He relaxes his facial muscles, it can't be that much longer, the meeting's already been five minutes. He can feel a burning sensation behind his eyes. He really needs to get out before he burns a hole in the windows.

"Thank you. That's very helpful."

I'm so glad to be of help.

"Of course, these people… most of them have powers. How many men should we send after them? Is it really possible to make it a fair fight?"

please don't make me do this.

"It depends on the person."

"Mm." The head nods once. "For the safety of my own men, I'll have to have a kill order."

Superman blinks, and the room rushes in. "What?" he asks.

"Well, as you said, these people are dangerous. And if they stand against the decision, they're technically committing treason."

Something is scratching at the back of his throat. It feels like a creature, trying to pull itself out so it can shed his skin. He holds it back. "I see."

"Of course, if you agreed to work for us, we could send you after them. They're your people, I'm sure you'd be able to disable the threat without resorting to unnecessary force."

There's a deathly silence in the room. Somewhere in the city, a siren is going off. It pieces its way through.

"And how long would this agreement last?"

Another moment.

"I see."

"Think of yourself as a guarantee. You work for us, you can protect your friends. Every agreement needs an enforcer."

"Of course."

There's a moment of silence. He steps back.

"Of course, you'd be acting under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government. You'd have to act only in situations that had been cleared for action. No more heroics." There's a jovial smile. It scrapes his eyes.

"Of course." He steps back again. "I'll get back to you," he says.

The smiles lessens. "All right. I hope you come to the right decision Superman, I really do. I wouldn't want to have you as an enemy."

You wouldn't stand a chance. Do you know how many alternate universes there are where I rule the world? I killed Lex Luthor in this very room.

He walks out slow enough for the guards to see him go.

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	3. Chapter 3

Some of them just need intimidation, knowledge that if they continue to resist, there's a threat behind it. A few he can reason with. Others fight him, and he's not sure which are the worst. The first time someone spits in his face, it could be laced with kryptonite. It seems to eat through his cheek. "Traitor."

There's us, and there's them. He doesn't know how to explain that he's doing this to minimize damage when damage is the only thing he seems to do anymore, but he's always been good at the speeches. Superman has no second thoughts.

When he goes up against Ollie for the fifth time and his arrows are full of kryptonite, it's a choice between stopping him and watching the army sent to kill him. They're getting impatient. It's necessary, he says, holding him against the wall, his heat vision flickering, and the scream seems to waver in and out as he cuts through his bow-arm. He wishes he could make it cleaner. The kryptonite arrows are too close. The arm lands on the floor with a wet, fleshy sound, and then he's staring into the other hero's eyes, and the emotions play across his face in the space of a few seconds. Shock, betrayal, and then hate.

He doesn't come home that night. Lying curled up in the highest clouds, close to the sun.

On Monday Clark Kent writes a piece on the decision. The focus is on Superman and the atrocities he has committed. _He betrayed his own kind_, it says. _What good reason could he have? Is this what Superman stands for now?_

"Kent," Perry says. His brows are drawn down. His mouth is tight. "I need to see you in my office."

Clark walks in timidly and perches on the edge of a chair.

"What's this all about," he asks, throwing the piece down on the desk.

"Superman," Clark says.

Perry gives him a _Look_.

"Are you doing all right?" he asks.

Clark stiffens. Then shrugs. "Fine, Chief."

"Uh-huh. And that's why this is the fifth article I have from you about Superman in the last two weeks."

Oh. Clark hadn't realized there had been so many.

"I understand if you need to get some anger out, but maybe this paper isn't the best place to do it."

There's a pause.

"I'm sure he has his reasons," he says at last. "Just like the rest of us. Sometimes a man's put in a place where there's no right decisions."

"Sometimes a man chooses the wrong one," Clark says, bitterly. Perry eyes him with a strange expression.

"I don't like to pry," he says at last. "And I've never asked about how you're always next to the action, or," he hesitates, "the closet next to the fire escape."

"I'm sorry," Clark says, standing up. "I think I hear… Lois calling me." He walks backward out the door, tripping over the wastebasket. It ruins his exit, and he crouches down, putting all the papers back.

Perry sighs. "All right, Kent," he says. "I get the message."

Clark pushes the door again and slips out, and manages not to bump into anyone on the other side.

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	4. Chapter 4

He doesn't expect it when they start attacking Clark Kent. He leaves Vigilante tied up on a roof somewhere in Metropolis and runs home to Lois, fast enough that no one even notices he's passing. He stumbles on their doorstep, reaches in his pockets for the keys. Drops them. By the time he's inside, Lois has stepped into the hall. "Clark?" she asks. "You all right?"

"Clark Kent got attacked," he says.

She frowns. "Attacked? Like a mugger?" she looks him over critically. Comes forward to close the door firmly behind him. "You look all right. What, they have a kryptonite keychain or something?"

"No. It was a hero. They're going after Clark Kent now."

She holds onto his arm. Her fingers press down tightly. "You'll be fine," she says.

"I know." Clark looks around the apartment, noticing the appalling lack of security measures. Any half-trained hero could break in without even trying. For a moment, he feels an echo of sympathy with the people who voted against them. It dies quickly. "But I'm worried about you."

Lois sighs. "Listen, Smallville," she says. "We've already had this conversation. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself." She pauses. "You should get changed. I'll make some hot chocolate," she adds with a smile.

He goes into the bedroom and stands by his closet. Clark's suits hang neatly in one row. They're badly cut. They look stuffy even without anyone in them. Behind them, Superman's suits stand like costumes for a film shoot. He takes off his clothes, reaches into the drawer for a t-shirt and jeans. He puts his glasses carefully on the bedside table. He walks out. The TV is on, there's a game spread across the floor in front of it. Lois is kneeling down, focused on setting it up.

"You hate playing games," he says.

She looks up at him. "I'm trying to cheer you up, Clark. Now get down here."

Lois has to win all of them, of course. It still manages to relax him. It's not until they're lying in bed and Lois's breathing has evened out to sleep that the thoughts return. _It's not safe_.

He closes his eyes and tries to listen. The heartbeats in the bed continue steadily on. All three sets.

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	5. Chapter 5

Metallo corners him in the alley behind their apartment when Clark walks home from work.

"Clark Kent, really?" he asks, head knocked into the brick. Clark is beside him. His head is aching. His vision swimming in and out. He has a lead-lined suit in the closet upstairs. That's too far. "I certainly never expected that." He's tossed against the bricks, and he's only thankful that he doesn't punch a hole through the building. "I'm going to enjoy this, Superman."

Lois should be getting home in the next ten minutes. It needs to be over by then. He grabs the villain and throws him down the alley. Sparks fly where the metal hits the pavement. Metallo lies prone for a moment, then pushes himself up, the kryptonite battery in his chest shining. Clark stumbles back toward the mouth of the alley, letting the villain crowd him. Then steps aside as a car zooms down the street. There's a crash that slows him down long enough for Clark to fly up through the open window to his bedroom to put on the lead-lined suit.

When he's called in the crash and made sure the people in the car have gotten out safely, he drags Metallo back to prison. Two hours later, the government calls Superman in.

"What was that about?" the president asks, standing on the lawn where Superman flies down to hover a few feet from the ground. The guards around him shift uneasily.

"Metallo attacked me. I don't know how he got out of jail."

"Remember what we said about _no heroics_?"

"I know!" Superman steps forward and there is a circle of armoured men around him, holding guns that glow green from within. He unclenches his fists and blinks. His teeth grind together. "I haven't been. I haven't done anything. Metallo attacked me. He had kryptonite. Should I not have defended myself? Should I have let him go free? Tell me where my actions are a problem, because I don't see it."

"The problem is that you are a government weapon that's apparently spending his time wandering about the city letting himself be attacked, putting innocent people in danger."

There's a long and tense silence. It takes two heartbeats to process what the president has said. Superman considers mentioning Lois. He could get her government protection—in another moment he remembers why he won't mention her. Lois would never forgive him. She would ditch the protection anyway.

They would never let his child go free.

"So I'm a weapon now," he says flatly. "I suppose I can't go anywhere without your approval."

He can see an agreement bit back on the president's face. There are just some things you shouldn't say to the superpowered alien you're trying to blackmail onto your side.

"I think perhaps you should be more careful," the president settles on. "You know there's bound to be some backlash about the decision. We don't want more people to get hurt than is necessary."

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, and watches the frown at the edge of the president's mouth.

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	6. Chapter 6

"You told them," Clark says. He hovers outside the glass-sided office. It's late; after midnight, but the lights in the city are bright enough that to the man inside, he's more than a silhouette. With a curse, the man presses a button and waves him in. Clark floats inside, arms crossed, and meets Luthor's eyes.

"You told them," he repeats.

"I admit, I may have let it slip," Luthor says.

"Why?"

"Have you seen the way you've been acting lately?" he asks, with an incredulous look.

"You've never told anyone before," Clark says. He lets himself touch the ground and looks around the room. He uncrosses his arms. "Why now?"

Luthor laughs. It's not amused. "You might not have noticed, but things have been changing."

"I know." Clark walks along the carpeted floor. Luthor watches him, seated behind his desk. He's twitchy when Clark travels out of his line of vision.

"I presume that if the president sent you, you'd be wearing your… _other_ clothes," Luthor says at last.

"Yes."

Clark stops at the other end of the room and stares out at the city. It's comforting to think no one can see through the treated glass. "I need to plan my death."

"Kent's or Superman's?"

"Kent's."

"That can be arranged." Luthor stands up. "Would you like to talk somewhere else?"

Clark follows him through the doors out of the room. Luthor informs Mercy there's no need to be alarmed, but she follows Clark with her eyes with quiet suspicion until they're out of sight, and Clark refrains from commenting on the tail that trails them at a discreet distance. He's never gotten to this part of the penthouse. Doesn't know the layout either; the walls all lined with lead.

He explains what he needs. There's a little voice in his head that says Batman could have helped with these arrangements as easily. He wouldn't have, though. Would probably be more inclined to plan Superman's death.

"You know, you could just leave," Luthor says at last. They've entered something that's obviously a private apartment, and he glances at Clark before slowly taking off his kryptonite ring. He places it on a glass-topped table, and it makes a clear, ringing _clink_ where it hits the glass. "There are other planets that would be happy to take Superman in."

Clark's been staring at the glowing ring ever since Luthor slipped it off his finger. He pulls his gaze away and sits carefully at the edge of a low couch. He looks at his hands. "That isn't an option." It is, of course. All it would take is for Superman to decide to leave Earth alone, to leave the only place he's ever really known as a home. It's painfully clear Earth no longer wants to be home to him.

"I'm sorry," Luthor says cordially.

Clark sighs. "Would you keep an eye on Lois?" he asks.

"Of course," Luthor answers. Clark feels the other side of the couch dip down where the man sits and looks over. The space between them seems longer than four feet. "You don't need to ask."

"Thank you," Clark says.

Lex gets up, wandering into another room, and comes back sometime later with a bottle and a glass. He starts to drink, offering some to Clark. Clark shakes his head.

"Just wait here a minute," he says at last, despite the fact that Clark hasn't shown any signs of moving. "I have something you might need." Clark can hear his footsteps beyond the lead-lined walls, and the sound of a drawer sliding open. Then he comes back with something in his hands.

It's a pistol. Not like any Clark has ever seen. It's obviously one-of-a-kind. It's plated in lead, and there's a lead cap at the end.

"Kryptonite bullet?" he asks, taking the gun in his hands. The metal feels softly cool.

"Yes. Just in case," Lex says, pouring himself another drink. He looks Clark in the eyes, serious, and it feels like he's being looked at, really looked at. He resists the impulse to adjust his glasses. He's not wearing them anyway. "They won't give you options."

Clark has no intention of ever using the gun, but he nods. It's Lex's last gift.

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	7. Chapter 7

He goes to the funeral, of course. As much as he can. There's a wide, grassy hill, but above it, the treeline starts, dark and bristling green. He stands still behind the trees in the shadows, eyes focused on the group milling around the closed black casket. It's a cold day. The sky is overcast, threatening rain.

Lois is there, of course. Wearing a black dress and a black jacket. It makes her hair look darker, and her violet eyes are rimmed with red. She's smiling, in a strained way, as the people come. Another car drives up in the distance. A taxi from the airport. Clark wonders for a moment who it is, then watches the door open and Cat Grant step out, dressed severely to the nines.

"Cat?" Lois asks. "I didn't think you'd come."

"Of course I'd come," she says. "I cancelled everything else, they understand. Poor Clark."

Lois's smile stays fixed to her face. It looks pained. "Yes," she says.

"Lois, I'm so sorry," Cat continues. Lois nods. Then Cat's reaching forward to hug her and for a moment they stand as though forgetting they're standing at the funeral. He thinks she might cry. She doesn't. When she pulls back, Lois smiles a softer smile. "Thank you," she says.

Lana won't be coming. She'd shown her disapproval of the plan from the first. "And if you think I'm going to show up at your funeral you have another thing coming," she said, when she realized there was no changing his mind.

When his parents come, Lois faces them awkwardly. She steps aside to avoid the gathering crowd and, looking around, lowers her voice. "Is he here?"

"He said he would be," Martha answers. "Why? Didn't he tell you?"

Lois makes the beginning of a laugh. "He hasn't shown up at all since 'Clark's death.'" The air quotes around it is obvious. Even more obvious is the unexpected bitterness. "At least he told you."

Martha frowns. Jonathan looks away, up the side of the hill to the dark tree line, and Clark moves back further into the shadows, even though he knows his father can't see him.

"Listen," Jonathan says at last, "Martha and I, we wanted to tell you. If you ever need to, you're welcome to stay with us for however long you want."

"It's no good to be alone right now," Martha continues, "Everything that's going on these days, and the baby too,"

"I know," Lois says, quietly. "I might take you up on that."

The service is short; somehow Cat and Jimmy end up sitting next to each other, and— "look over there," Cat hisses.

Jimmy, who is being a good friend, is listening to the service, and looks over at Cat in annoyance. "What are you talking," he starts, in a low voice, and she points with her eyes. "Over there," she says. On the other side of the aisle of folding chairs. Jimmy turns his head to look.

"Tell me that's who I think it is," she continues.

"It's Bruce Wayne," Jimmy confirms. "I don't know why he's here though." He pauses for a moment. "No," he says at last. "Actually that's not true. I mean Mr. Wayne would always choose Clark to cover him in Gotham. I saw them meet a few times and they seemed to get along pretty well."

"Were they friends?" Cat asks.

Jimmy shrugs. "I don't know."

"Funny," she muses, "what you don't know about people you're friends with."

After the service, Perry goes up to the coffin. He stands next to the smooth black surface for a moment, staring down. "Clark was a good man," he says. Jimmy hovers beside him, and Perry turns a moment to sigh and put an arm around him. "I told him that once, near the end," he continues. "I don't think he could hear me, but I tried to tell him."

"He was the best friend anyone could have," Jimmy says quietly.

Lex Luthor is there too. He sits in the back row and drinks from a line of bottles beside him. He's already drunk when the dark shadow looms over him, and there's Bruce, scowling down. "What are you doing here," he growls, snatching the bottle from his hand. Lex frowns at him. "Give it back," he says.

"No," Bruce says.

Lex sneers. "So I can't come to the funeral of my best friend now?"

Bruce laughs. "Clark wasn't your best friend," he says coldly. "He hated you."

"Ha," Lex says. "He was my friend long before he was yours. And no one can stop me from coming to his funeral—"

"And disgracing his memory," Bruce says, lips curled. "Of course." He sets the bottle down a little harder than necessary.

Bruce knows Clark isn't really dead. He walks up to the coffin after almost everyone else. "So," he says at last, conversationally. "I wonder what I would see if I opened this casket. A bag of corn maybe?" he laughs.

It really isn't funny, Clark would like to tell him. But he is trapped at the forest's edge.

"Or maybe another body. What a serendipitous accident, mangling your face so much there could be no expectation of a wake. Luthor's behind it all, isn't he." He waits a moment, as though participating in a conversation Clark isn't having.

"I thought so," he says. "And I have to tell you, I think you're making a stupid decision."

When the coffin is in the ground and covered with dirt, Lois and his parents are the ones that stay longest, just standing next to the grave as if waiting for someone to arrive.

No one does.

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	8. Chapter 8

He doesn't notice at first how they've stopped calling his name. For years, it was always there to hear at the edges of his consciousness. _Superman_, _Superman_. They don't say it anymore. Last night he was sent out of the country. It's the first time he's left America since the decision, and there had been an awkward moment when the president announced the dispute, and his role (threaten, save American hostages, do whatever is necessary, do you understand?) of course he does. All he's done for months is what has been necessary. It's whittled his days down to the bare essentials of survival, sometimes not even that.

The moment where everyone present paused in knowledge of the fact that this is outside the stated, unstated rules of their agreement, where everyone wondered _is this the moment it will be too much_? Was Superman going to become a traitor hunted on American soil just as much as he is hunted by the heroes, what is left of them? When everyone had to face the uncomfortable truth that if he decided to leave, or worse, attack the president, he wouldn't easily be stopped, kryptonite guns or no.

He had looked straight ahead, _straight through_, the way he seems to be doing more and more these days—it's easier not to feel empathy, feel connection, with the humans when all he sees is muscle and bone with empty spaces in between. He told himself he didn't have a choice.

When he gets back to the fortress, he lets its crystal walls block out all earthly sounds, a forced muffling of sensation that is both terrifying and freeing, and listens to the silence within the unearthly structure. There are baths, both hot and icy cold, piped up from below the surface, and showers that run hot enough to boil a human, cold enough to freeze. When he has guests, there are a number of safeguards and restrictions automatically imposed to protect those other than himself.

Now it is only him.

_What are you doing with yourself_? Clark seems to ask, from behind the steamed crystal walls, as Superman turns the water all the way up. He just feels so tired, and yet he doesn't want to go into the sky to feel rejuvenating sunlight on his skin. If he does, he might float away. He shouldn't feel peace if everyone on Earth is crying out against his own actions. It isn't right.

It's a good thing he hasn't had any time to stop and think, because lately, he doesn't know what he's thinking at all.

When he steps out of the shower, Superman looks at himself in the pale crystalline mirror. Does he look alien? It's a recurring question that's had a place in his mind ever since he found out who his parents really were. He's never been able to decide on an answer. His dark curls are pressed down under the weight of water, but his skin is untouched by the heat that rises off him in steam that crackles when it touches the cooler walls. Today he does, he decides. There's something in his eyes that is cold. They are Kal's eyes. Clark is gone, left behind in the water droplets and the steam of the shower that no human can withstand. And it's a good thing Clark is gone, because if he wasn't dead, he'd be grieving over what he's given up: the only thing a man always has with him, no matter what the situation, his pa used to say. Freedom—up here (a point toward his head) and in here (toward his heart).

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	9. Chapter 9

"You need to stop," Superman says, facing down the man before him, suited in dark armor and a lead-lined mask. He snorts; still unafraid of Superman. Perhaps it's because he knows him too well. Or maybe he's just too insane to realize when he should be scared.

"You're going to have to kill me if you want to stop me," he says mildly. "Last I checked, crime still exists. And I'll be out here as long as the world needs me." He gives Superman a long, unfathomable look behind white lenses. "You used to understand that."

"I _do_," Superman returns. He lets annoyance creep into his voice. He takes a little of the ice away from his posture, lets it move closer to human. "But Batman, you're not helping; people like you are making the tensions worse. The government needs to feel like we'll respect their judgment. As long as you keep on acting, I'm going to have to go after you, and they're getting impatient. They want to send the army."

"Let them send it," Batman says coolly. "Do you really believe they can take me down?"

"Anyone can be taken down by numbers, if there are enough of them," Superman answers. "And you shouldn't be making an enemy of the government."

Batman laughs shortly. "They made an enemy of me first. They want to wipe me out. To wipe all of us out. Or didn't you hear," his voice turns mocking. "They have a new toy at their command. It's going after all the heroes that don't step in line. Ollie's fine by the way," he adds, and watches Superman flinch. "When I last saw him, he was swearing that if he ever saw you he was going to kill you. I'd watch out."

"He can't take me down," Superman says, drily.

"No," Batman answers, and doesn't go after the obvious rejoinder. _Not him, but enough like him_… "That's already happened, hasn't it?"

There's the far-off echo of a police siren, and Batman turns his head, like a predator sensing prey on the wind. In another moment, he's soaring out from the square rooftop into the dark-lit streets, and it would take no effort at all to sever the taut cord that is all that binds him to life. Yet Batman makes the jump regardless. Every time, throwing his life to chance in the mad gamble against gravity and fate.

Superman watches him go until he's only a speck that blends in with the reflections of windows twenty streets away.

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	10. Chapter 10

There's an attack on the prison that leaves carnage in its wake; the official story is terrorists. Somehow, the weapons they had, high-end with no trace of where they were made, blew up on them in numerous and cleverly-designed ways, and none of them are left to tell the tale. Only a few inmates have been killed; it looks like a random list.

It isn't. Superman stares at the list, or more precisely, at Metallo's name in the center of it, and knows that there was one thing that linked these villains to each other. They knew his identity as Clark.

Now they're dead.

He recognizes the mind behind the weapons, as little as there is to tie Lex to the crime, and if this was any other time he'd be storming up to his tower to scream at him about lives lost. Now, all he feels is a guilty sense of relief. He's keeping his promise to protect Lois. It almost doesn't matter how.

He makes a visit to his parents' house after that, to remind himself that there are still people who care in languages that aren't of destruction, and stops short, stepping into the kitchen in the change of clothes that is still always waiting in his old loft, to find Lois staring at him.

He didn't know she was here.

"Wow," Lois says, in a sarcastic drawl, when the silence becomes too heavy to bear. "I would've moved here earlier if I knew that was all it took to arrange a meeting."

"Lois," Clark says uncomfortably. He reaches up to fiddle with glasses he doesn't have on and ends up putting his hands awkwardly in his pockets. "Hi."

"Hi?" Lois asks. "Is that it? Are we acquaintances now? It's a real question," she asks, stepping forward. "Should I take this ring off my finger?" she holds it out to him and Clark looks at the shining gold band he'd made for her himself. He swallows. He knows he should say _yes_ and get it over with. Sever all ties with her. It's the best way to protect her.

He can't speak.

Instead he looks beyond that, at her face, lined with worry, her hair tied back in a ponytail, fingers smudged with ink from her pen—of course she's still writing—wearing a shirt and pants too fancy for a place like this, and a sweater of his mother's. Underneath that, and he gasps, taken by the sight of the baby inside her. It's bigger, big enough to see the beginnings of features, and it's curled up, sleeping, the tiny beat of its heart still so fragile. He doesn't realize that he's reached out his hand, hovering uncertainly before her belly as though not sure if he's allowed to touch. Lois sighs in fond exasperation.

"Go ahead," she says, and he lets his hand rest ever so carefully against her.

"He's so beautiful," he says, and blinks back tears from his eyes. In another moment, he realizes Lois is also trying not to cry.

"Oh god, Clark," she says, and reaches for him, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I've missed you so much, I've been so worried. I know you have to do things you don't want to but please don't leave me out of it. Even if you can't stay. A visit is enough. Just so I know you're all right."

"I'm sorry," Clark answers, freely crying. "Lois, I'm so sorry." Lois sniffles loudly and pulls away to wipe her nose on her sleeve.

"I'm such a mess," she says. "I haven't had much sleep; I must look awful. I look awful, don't I?" she asks.

"No, you're beautiful," Clark says.

Lois smiles in a watery way. For a moment, that seems like it's going to be all. Then, with a sudden determination, she presses up to him with a hungry, angry kiss that he can't help but reciprocate, and in another moment there's a sudden whoosh of wind beside them and she blinks and laughs to find them in his bedroom. "I love you," she says.

"I love you too."

In the morning, when Clark has finished the chores he still does whenever he visits his parents, he stands on the porch looking out into endless fields. They're not really endless, he knows. They never were, even when he was younger; but now, when he listens toward Metropolis, it's always braced as if for a blow, and far away, Washington D.C. stands like a spectre, a house of bone that's caught him in its grasp. He'd never meant to be under anyone's control but his own. He'd created Superman so he could be his own man, so he could have a life as a person and still be able to do his duty toward the people he lived among.

He's almost forgotten why it was important that he created Clark. For a moment, in the early sun, it comes back to him that you have to have a life to want to save one.

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	11. Chapter 11

He forces himself not to go back. Clark brings too much attention; every time he flies to his parents' house he checks the skies and the ground around him obsessively for spies, but all it would take is one slip-up, and his list of allies is nonexistent. There is no one left who could save them if anything happened. There is Bruce and Lex, but he doesn't want to think about what Bruce is driving himself toward; and Lex, though he trusts him in a strange way, is not someone he wants to have taking a bigger part in the life of those he loved. Nor does he deserve to even ask that of him. He's asked more than he deserves already.

So the fortress it is, and there's plenty enough there to occupy him. The entire history of a planet that was never his in more than name, a collection of what no longer exists. He spends time in the greenhouses and in the zoo, animals taken from places as strange as they are, each one with a story. The animals don't know or care about what happens beyond their small green space, nor do they realize the weight of betrayal staining his hands. To them, he is just the nice being that brings them treats and talks to them in a quiet voice.

The fortress informs him that kryptonians, like humans, are social creatures that were not meant to live entirely in isolation. He nods and thanks it politely, and ignores the pictures it arranges to leave in strategic places of his friends and family.

Another day, another hero taken down. The ones he manages to deal with himself are the wins. No matter what carnage was left behind in the dealing.

The list is dwindling ever downward to the name he's dreading to find is the last.

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	12. Chapter 12

It's only because of the Batsignal, shining defiantly into the sky, that Superman takes the detour into Gotham to land at the edge of the GCPD's roof. Gordon tenses, but to any normal observer he would seem entirely unconcerned at the sudden arrival of a flying man from beyond the edge of the building.

For a moment Gordon watches him in undisguised suspicion. The loathing is easy enough to predict and easy enough to ignore. The pity is harder to swallow.

"You shouldn't turn that on," Superman says.

"Did you hear what happened?" Gordon asks abruptly, and then reacts to something on his face, a confusion that isn't feigned. He drops his burnt-away cigarette to the ground and scuffs it out with his shoe. "Batman hasn't shown up since. I worried he…" there's a pause.

"What happened?" Superman asks. Sudden apprehension seems to pull him. He wants to step off the edge and fly far enough away that he couldn't hear the answer Gordon is preparing to give.

"Robin. The poor kid." Gordon pauses, his voice chocked. "That bastard. The Joker killed him—Beat him to death, it looks like." He takes a breath, reaches into his pocket for another cigarette and brings it to his mouth, taking a steadying drag before he speaks again. "I saw him. No one should have to…" he hesitates. "No one should have to bury their kid like that."

Superman is gone before he finishes speaking, but the words follow him.

He doesn't go to Batman. He goes to find the Joker instead, still—thankfully—alive, Bruce hasn't gotten to him yet, and before the Joker knows what's happened the wall of his hideout has been smashed open and he's being pressed against the wall.

"Why?" Superman says. It's the only thing he can think of to say. He doesn't expect a real answer from the clown, and it's the shock of what he says that makes him let go and step back.

"You won't have to kill him now," Joker says. "I took care of it. We weren't meant to die yet, not like this. Don't worry, you won't see Batman again."

Superman stares into the Joker's face, which right now seems all too sane. There's a knowing glint in his eyes. "All you have to do is push," he says.

Superman hits him. There's a crack of breaking bone and the Joker is silent. Anyone else would scream, in pain as well as fear, but the Joker only stares at him with glittering eyes, refusing to be cowed. Refusing to be scared. Superman thinks of Jason lying on the ground, blood staining him, bones broken, and hits the Joker again. The Joker wheezes, struggling to breathe, but still does nothing but look back. He thinks of Bruce outside a new grave dug in his family's plot, blaming himself for not saving his child, for putting him out there in the first place, and hits the Joker again. There's internal bleeding. If Superman left him, he would surely die. Even if he was brought to the hospital, he might yet. It's up to chance.

The Joker laughs. "Just one little push, that's all you need. I gave you the ammunition," he says. "Batman will never know. It'll be our little secret," he says, and grins up at Superman with lips stretched in a sly and bloody smile. Superman hits him once more, knocking his head against the concrete wall, and watches him sink into unconsciousness.

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	13. Chapter 13

A man is in the hospital, staring down at the still figure, so pale he seems to bleed into the pastel of the walls. He looks around when Clark enters, and it's Bruce.

Clark has never been the type of famous to have his name in too many pictures, and it's been long enough since his death that if anyone noticed a resemblance they wouldn't suspect he was the same man. He dresses differently now too. His clothes fit, for one thing. His suits are still carefully neutral, picked to blend with the crowd, but now he is the type people look away from not because he carries the tiniest hint of pathetic with him, but because of the coldness, something not quite danger, that seems to surround him. Some people think he's an actor. Some a bodyguard. Others think of worse names, and if they ever speak it in his hearing he only smiles and lets them decide for themselves.

They never decide they're wrong.

"What are you doing here." Bruce's voice shakes with fury.

"I wanted to make sure you were all right," Clark says.

Bruce puts down the bundle of flowers clenched in his hand. It's a strange sight, but Clark knows his cover story is a mission of charity. The little spot of good cheer seems garish against the small white table, the machines hooked up to the Joker's frail body, and the manacles keeping him tied down should he ever wake up.

"He's in a coma," Bruce says. There's anger in his voice, and it's not at how he's treated the Joker.

"Yes," Clark answers.

"How could you? It should have been me—"

"To kill him?" Clark asks cuttingly. "I'm not going to let you destroy yourself over this, Bruce." He hesitates, then continues on. "Not like you destroyed Jason."

Bruce flinches. "He killed him," he says, brokenly. "Oh god. Clark." Before Clark realizes what has happened, Bruce has started to cry, silent, ugly tears that seem to pain him more than to heal. He presses his hands against the white tabletop and looks into the distance. "He beat him to death. I counted the wounds. Do you want to know how many there were?"

"Stop," Clark says. "I'm not going to let you kill yourself over what the Joker did."

"I wanted to kill him," Bruce answers, savagely. "You took that from me." He turns to Clark. "You took that from me, and you _knew_—"

"And whose fault was it that Jason was out there?" Clark says. "Fighting serial killers and lunatics is no place for a kid. It's no place for anyone, but you brought him there."

"I did what I had to," Bruce says. "Jason wanted—I tried—" he pauses, and when he speaks again, there is no anger left in his voice. "I tried. I know I'm not the best father, but I could give him what I never had. I could give them that."

"You gave him an early death," Clark says, ignoring the facts that say that, had Bruce never found him, Jason would probably be dead now anyway, and knowing none of the love and the joy he'd known in between. He continues, even though the thought of using Jason like this makes him feel sick. The kid is already dead, his death shouldn't be dragged out as a wrong for someone else's gain. "Jason's dead, because you were too stubborn and too blinded to realize when you had gone too far."

Bruce is turned away. He's grabbed the flowers again, and they hang limply from his crushing grip. He's halfway to leaving the room and unable to move. "Don't," he says, and it's as much a plea as he's ever heard of his friend.

"It's true," Clark says, and watches Bruce curl in on himself as if to protect from a blow.

But when Bruce speaks, his voice is hard and brittle. "There was a time when you would have just said what you meant, Clark. It's what I always liked about you. Your honesty."

He turns back to stare into Clark's eyes with a face that is as much a mask as Clark has ever seen, and he admires that even now, Bruce can find the strength. "You won't have to kill Batman," he says. "He's already dead. I hope that gives you some consolation."

He walks out of the room and the door clicks shut quietly behind him, leaving Clark alone in the room with the Joker's body and a few damp petals left from the bouquet.

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	14. Chapter 14

It's easy to lose track of time. When the fortress informs him that the White House is in need of his services, he flies out. He finds it amusing to imagine the dour men with their sharp-pressed suits standing in the field, staunchly ignoring the grey drizzle that rains from a mourning sky, calling his name into the air and checking their watches, wondering if he's going to show up.

He always does.

When he has dealt with the latest threat: terrorists, hostages, trouble all over the globe, he flies back to the fortress. It's easy to lie in the silver-sheeted bed and stare up into dazzling white. There are holographic years to lose himself in, animals to tend to, and the parasitic dream-plant, locked in crystal. A single creeper, cut from its host, latches onto his chest with thorns that pierce his skin, and the plant grows stronger, feeding on his life while he goes back to a different time. _Clark Kent fiddles with his glasses, wondering about the hint of uneasiness left behind, as though something momentous has happened. _

_Just a bad dream._

He wakes up encased in crystal, the grown plant withering in the heat of a laser beam. The Fortress informs him that his life-signs had dipped low enough that it had to cut the dream short. _(Just yesterday he was on a date with Lois, he was fighting off villains in the streets of Metropolis, he was meeting Batman for the first time again.)_

Flying back into American airspace, still surrounded by the smell of gas that hasn't lifted even when he flies skimming over the dark waves of the Atlantic, he hears the high pattern of beeps unique to the watch he gave Jimmy, a call for help that he would hear wherever he was. He hones in on the sound, picks up threatening voices and the click of a gun. Then he's flying faster, passing over the familiar outline of Metropolis like he hasn't been avoiding it for so long, into the high windows of the bank. The glass shatters, but he's flown past long before it even begins to fall, and when the bullet flies home, he's standing in front of it. He grabs the gun and bends it on itself, facing the sudden ashen faces of the robbers.

"Superman," one of them whispers. They stumble back.

"Out, out—I don't care about the money, just run!" he hears their footsteps echoing away onto the street where police sirens are already approaching.

Superman turns around. Jimmy is watching him with confused relief. He's gotten taller, his face has hardened, stripped of the boyhood that used to linger. He looks older, and Clark wonders suddenly just how long it's been since he paid attention to the world.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Jimmy says awkwardly. His eyes dart around the room, avoiding Superman's.

"I didn't give you that watch so I could ignore it," Superman answers at last.

"I guess so," Jimmy says, hesitantly. "Thanks."

Superman looks toward the doors. Outside, he can hear the doors opening, the policemen getting out, calling into the bank. The robbers have already been rounded up.

"I should go," he says. "You won't… tell about how you contacted me."

"No, no of course not," Jimmy says. He continues, quickly, "I know you aren't the most popular guy right now, and maybe you've been reading the papers, but you know how Lois is, she can't keep her opinion to herself if she thinks she can do some good. It doesn't mean she wouldn't… if you visited her…"

Superman looks over and raises an eyebrow, watching Jimmy trail off awkwardly into flustered silence. But then his mouth firms. "It's been hard, that's all. Since Clark died. And it's not like she hasn't kept making enemies. It might be nice for her to know there's someone still looking out for her."

"Right now, the best way me to look out for anyone is to avoid them," Superman says, drily.

Jimmy looks him in the eyes. "That's not true," he says. "You saved me."

When the policemen enter the bank, Clark is standing outside among the curious bystanders. He trails away with the receding crowd, grabbing a newspaper off a rack as he passes and tucking it into his jacket, too quick for anyone to notice. When he's far enough away, he pulls it out and glances down, searching for the date.

It's been five years.

He sinks down onto a stoop, watching people rush by. His hand twists around the edge of the paper and it rips with a dull sound. A few people glance at him curiously as they pass. They look away before their gaze lands.

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	15. Chapter 15

Lois's heartbeat is unmistakable. It leads him through the city, to an unfamiliar apartment. She's standing at the door, pushing it open, bags in one hand. Her hair is longer than it used to be, there are lines around her eyes and mouth that Clark doesn't know by heart. His gaze follows her through the walls, and he hears the sound of feet rushing toward the door, another pair of steps following them.

"Mommy!" the boy says, jumping up to her. Lois bends down to take the boy in her arms.

"Hi Jon," she says. "What did you do while I was gone today?"

"We learned about Rome, and made some ancient coins," a woman says. "Let me take your bags."

"Thanks," Lois says, handing them over. "Money laundering, hm? Why am I not surprised."

The woman smirks. "Hardly that."

"Come see!" Jon says, stopping his excited re-enactment to slip down from Lois's grasp and tug her away.

For a moment the woman stands looking after them. Clark watches the way she stands under the pantsuit, like a bodyguard, before she turns around to look at the wall, staring uncannily into his eyes as though she senses his presence.

"You set off the proximity alarms," she says, walking over to the window and opening it. For a moment, she stares out into the empty side of an alley before Clark moves up to hover beside it. He can see the heated air moving into the cold, twisting its way out of the window and up toward the sky.

"Who are you," he says.

"Grace," the woman answers, with a calm non-reaction to the sight of him hovering thirty feet above the ground. She nods at him professionally. "Think of me as insurance. Ms. Lane has a lot of enemies, and she can't stay with the boy all the time."

Clark stares at her a moment, frowning. "Lex sent you."

"You don't have to worry, Superman," the woman answers. "I hold the safety of my charges in the highest regard."

"I didn't tell him he could set guards on Lois," Clark says, folding his arms.

"He thought it might be prudent," Grace replies. She regards him, her face softening slightly. "It's hard enough to be a single mother without having to wonder when your child might exhibit superpowers."

"Jon—" Clark says, and stops short.

"My information is that he's your child, not Kent's." She looks at him with an inscrutable expression. "Am I wrong?"

Clark looks past the wall, to the other room where Jon is lifting plaster-of-paris coins out of a cardboard mold, Lois bending over to watch. Neither of them know how flimsy the walls are, how unreliable a façade.

"You're not wrong," he says at last.

/

There's something wrong about the farm. He notices as soon as it comes into view, a speck on the ground. It's been kept up, to an extent. The farmhouse is still there; the fields are open. He can already hear the absence of heartbeats.

Clark falls hovering from the sky, drifting past the windows to the loft, sinks down on the old, warped floor and leans back, hugging his knees. His parents are gone. Haven't been here in ages, he can tell, though everything in his old Fortress is just as he left it. It doesn't make sense. If they'd moved, everything should have changed.

He closes his eyes and listens for the heartbeats he knows, past the farm, past the town, past the bustle of the city. Past Lois, Jon, Jimmy, Lex. And there is his mother's, somewhere in Metropolis.

He changes his clothes, tucking the Superman suit under a faded red blanket. The design that used to mean the realization of his dreams now seems mocking and horrible. Clark Kent's shirt still fits; the faded flannel smells like straw, with the faint hint of detergent. It's been recently cleaned. He lies on the couch, looking out the window toward the stars.

He dreams.

When the morning light has just begun washing out the darkness of the sky, Clark leaves, floating down the ladder like a shadow. The dust on his shoes seems right, real. He runs through the fields, watching them whip and blur behind his passing. He runs through the forest, along the verge of the road, while the sun lights the leaves with gold.

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	16. Chapter 16

"Why didn't you tell me my father was dead?"

The fortress could point out that both his biological parents have been dead for years. Instead, it does something worse: without a word, it brings up a holographic display of his last outburst, screaming into the air, smashing another one of those pictures. "Stop showing me these! Stop trying to get me to visit them! I _can't_, all right? I don't want to hear about them anymore!" The recorded sound of his voice, the unrecognizable anger on his face, and the splintered glass. It's a picture of his father and mother and him, the very first picture he was in as a child, when he had so-recently fallen down to earth. They stare at the thing in their arms as though he is a miracle.

Clark flinches.

"It was to my understanding that you wished never to be informed of your adopted parents again," the fortress says. "Was I wrong?" it adds. "Your mother is still alive, you know. She is currently residing in Metropolis. She and Lois spend every Saturday afternoon together. They usually go to a café or a museum, and they take your child along."

"Stop," Clark says.

The fortress stops. It does so with palpable reluctance.

/

When Bruce goes to visit the farm—it's his now, technically, but it will never belong to anyone but the Kents in his mind—the people in Smallville stop him with an apologetic air to warn him away.

"Oh, you don't want to go down to the Kent farm, Mr. Wayne."

"Is that so?" Bruce says pleasantly. "Why?"

They hem and haw for a moment before revealing that there's been an unquiet ghost seen visiting the place, haunting the grounds. "You know—the poor boy." Clark.

"I assume the people I hired to take care of the place are still doing their jobs?"

"Oh, of course! The ghost hasn't been any trouble."

"Good to know," Bruce says. "Anyway, I'm not afraid of ghosts." He drives up the old gravel path, gets out in front of the house, then turns, and walks out to the barn instead. It still smells of hay and musty summer days, the kind of nostalgia for something that strikes Bruce as having never existed. The small-town spirit—who knew there was still anything like it in the world? It's nothing like Gotham. Never has been.

"So here's the ghost," Bruce says.

Clark is looking out the window, staring, with a face like some stone carved ages ago, a statue of a man who lost everything. Bruce wishes he could get angry, but it's been so long.

"You've always been more a ghost than me," Clark replies. "You were so good at being a legend. …Do you still have the full Grey Ghost series on VHS?"

"Disc, now, but of course I do. I'm Batman," he says. It's a dry joke. It doesn't feel like a joke when it leaves his mouth, though; it feels hard and bitter and tired, and still too true. He's never really thought of himself as Bruce. Maybe he _is_ a ghost, after all. "I've missed you, Clark."

Clark laughs, without any humor. "I miss him too."

Bruce sits down awkwardly on the floor. His bones are getting too old for this.

"There are better farms you could have bought for horses," Clark said at last.

"I like horses," Bruce said. "Anyway, your mother wanted to sell the farm."

They fall into silence. There's so much, still, between them; so many wrongs that can never be righted, but right now, there is nothing awkward in the air between them. There is the warm muggy air of summer and the breeze that meets the endless sky. Bruce invites Clark into the house, find something in the kitchen fridge to heat up, and without a word, Clark takes over the cooking. Bruce pours himself a drink and stares out the checkered red and white curtains, feels the honey-wood of the old table under his hand, marked and scarred from its use for so many years.

"I didn't know you drank," Clark says, as he brings the plates over. It is a motion so infinitely careful and so uncalculatedly natural, at the same time. Bruce looks at the hand that can break bones without even breaking a sweat as it handles the cool china, and then he forces himself to look away. He smiles grimly.

"I didn't used to. But. It's easier to fight the temptation to get involved when everything's just a little bit dulled and far away. And drinking is a socially acceptable vice."

"Well thought out, even in your destructive impulses?"

"Always," Bruce says. "You should be proud. Cheers."

At least Clark has the grace to look slightly uncomfortable, for a moment, before it changes to annoyance and is wiped out by a blank stare.

"Cheers," Clark says. His own glass is filled with water.

They eat in silence. Later, Clark washes and dries the dishes, and Bruce goes out riding. He stays the night, in the guest bedroom. In the morning, as he'd expected, Clark is gone.

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	17. Chapter 17

Its Lois that he follows into an old secondhand shop, the windows caked with grime. She's been careful; too careful for a mere shopping trip, and Clark, wandering among the vast breathing tide of the humans rushing through Metropolis's streets, watches her enter a back room, and from there, a hidden staircase behind a door lined with lead.

It's the impulse of a moment, a curiosity he'd thought he'd shaken for good, that has him stepping in after her, repeating the password she had spoken to the woman in the back room. "Sunset."

He has a feeling the metaphor is intentional.

Down the hidden stairs, every step brings him into a more labyrinthine space, lab-like in its sterile brightness, in the overlay of acrid, unnatural scents and cleaning supplies; it still makes his skin crawl with something like dread, and the breath catch in his throat. Down at last, the stairs open into a wide open space, filled—oh, Clark thinks, oh… with so many names and faces he'd never thought he'd see again, superheroes and metahumans who had never made it onto the active lists. He'd wondered, of course. What they were doing. How they were living.

He can hear the buzzing electricity of a computer network, conversations about crimes happening and solved with stealth, under the radar. For a long moment, all he does is stand there among everyone immersed in their own business, buoyed by the sound of work and chatter, laughter and self-absorption. It feels like everything he'd left behind at the _Planet_ and in the Justice League—a team, working together for the forces of good. He doesn't realize how much the wound has numbed until it stings again, until he's crying quietly into his cupped hands.

Soft, uncertain steps walk his way, and hesitate. He can feel the queasy drop in his stomach before he looks back, and the green glow of kryptonite does not surprise him. But there's no attack, and when he meets Superboy's eyes, all he sees is firm resolve.

"Did they send you?" Conner says, quietly.

"You're choosing not to make a scene here?" Clark figures he's been taken hostage, or as good as; though the exposure to the stone is already making Superboy pale and weak himself; the sweat stands out against the clamminess of his skin, but he keeps the portal on the lead ring open. Clark could easily overpower him; could probably leave without an alarm having ever been raised; still, he doesn't.

"Answer the question." The tone of his voice reminds him of Luthor and of himself, all tangled up.

"No. If they knew, I'm sure the army would have already made a move; I'd just be called in to pick up the pieces."

"Will they know?"

"Superman was never here," Clark says. "How could he be? God, Conner, I'm glad—I'm glad someone is…"

"Working against you? Maybe you should think about that."

Clark laughs bitterly. "I'm too far gone. I've been too far gone for years. I'm not sure Superman even knows how to stop."

For a moment, there is an awkward space between them; as the admission he's always known finally echoes its way through the quiet. Conner shifts, uncertainly. "You should leave," he says at last, somewhat more gently.

"Yes. Of course." As he turns to go, he says over his shoulder, "it's truly inspiring. I'm sure Luthor would be flattered to hear that."

"You think he's behind this?"

"Behind this? I doubt it," Clark says. "Funding it? It couldn't be anyone else. He's the self-proclaimed 'ruler of Metropolis'. Batman would have chosen Gotham as a base, and honestly, I'm inclined to think there'd be less whitewashed walls and more caves and torches… not to mention I'd never have gotten in at all if Bruce was involved."

"True," Conner says. Then, "What will you do now?"

"About this? Nothing."

He leaves aside the rest of the question; the impossible choice that seems so perilously possible. He's forgotten why it really matters that Superman stay on the side of the American government. Hadn't he always been a protector of Earth, in all its multiplicity? When had that changed?

When he steps out of the secret entrance, he watches the door close softly behind him, knowing he'll never find it there again. They are, all of them, much too smart to rely on only his word.

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	18. Chapter 18

It's Batman, of course, who destabilizes the slow, practical approach. He doesn't wait for Luthor to become president, for the army to stand down, for the world to forget there had ever been a thing called _Superheroes_. With a fiery-haired Robin and a force of Gotham riding on horseback like a military of legend. In a short month, with war averted and the world steeped in uncertainty, everything falls, the glittering lights flicker off around the globe, and even the light of the sun dims for a moment. The air crackles like rebellion; and Superman thinks—_with me on their side, with Batman thought dead for good, the government will never suspect what is in motion. They have become complacent by relying on me for so long against outside threats. They think I've proved that there's no path too dark for me to tread_.

_And maybe they're right._

_But if it is, then at least I can step aside, and allow the waters to rise_.

/

It doesn't fix everything. It doesn't even fix most things. Food and water are scarce. Roads are crumbling, while the people fight among themselves as to what the government ought to do, or whether there should be one at all. The Meta-Rebellion, they're already calling it. It's a pretty name for burned out houses and countless dead. But already, new fields of sunflowers are growing in the rubble, looking toward the sky.

Clark knocks on the door, hesitantly. He can see Lois inside, typing furiously at a typewriter, mechanicals beside her. She opens the door distracted, the boy behind her shoulder looking at him with eyes that glow red in warning.

"Mom, that's—"

"Clark?" Lois says. She pauses, and her face twists through grief and anger and acceptance, until all that is left is one breath after another, and a hand held out to him that he grasps with one of his own.

"I'm sorry," Clark says. "I was wrong. I've been wrong the whole time, and… I think I should go, leave Earth, but I had to say something to you first—"

"No," Jon says. "No, that's too easy. You helped this all happen, you have to be here to help fix it, too…" and he's standing close, watching him as though trying to memorize the differences between the stories his mother has told and the tired, fallible man.

"I think my presence would do more harm than good," Clark says at last.

"Will it?" Lois says. "Let the world be the judge of that. Maybe you'll be exiled. God knows I won't let anyone kill you, but Jon's right. It shouldn't be up to you anymore, Superman. We've been living with that long enough."

"All right," Clark says. He agrees. He's agreed for so long, but it's only now that he's allowed himself the courage to really think about it.

For the first time, there is the flicker of a smile on his son's face, and he steps forward, hesitantly, as though wanting to hold him but not sure if he's allowed.

Lois takes him by the arm, and Clark, and then they are all hugging one another, there, in the doorway of an apartment in Metropolis, amid millions of beating hearts. In the wilds of a place called America, full of life, of humans and aliens and animals and the wild growing things. In a country amid countries, in a world made of water and deep brown earth and the soft green, spun across the galaxy, in the middle of a necklace of stars strewn across the black.

It doesn't fix everything. It doesn't even fix most things.

But it's a start.

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End file.
